After the talks, attendees spent the afternoon moving through any of 16 asynchronous workshop sessions building everything from RFID doorlocks to underwater robots. The twitter wall projected in the main workshop area showed the excitement of attendees as they spent the afternoon learning and building.

Since there is no way to attend all the workshops, the Makerland organizers created a fantastic book with all the workshop instructions! Each attendee received a printed and bound copy, and you can download the tutorials on the Makerland website.

https://twitter.com/RachelRayns/status/445573663480242176

As I walked through the workshop area, almost every seat was full – attendees were learning and building together, which you can see in the slideshow below.

Walking in a Maker Wonderland: Makerland Day 1

3D Printed Makerland Badges

3D printed badges are very appropriate for a conference with 36! 3D printers.

Awesome Makerland Artwork

The Makerland artwork and scenic elements are fantastic. This is the main stage podium for presenters.

Detecting Cellular Signals

Mobile Vikings, a European mobile phone company, setup a soldering station where attendees could make a "Cellular Detector" that lights up as a cell phone rings nearby.

Python, Ruby and Arduino

In the "Python and Ruby Sitting in a Tree" workshop, attendees programmed an Arduino to interact with sensors such as the DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor, the VCNL4000 light sensor, the HC-SR404 ultrasonic ranging module, and the HC-SR501 PIR sensor module.

Python, Ruby and Arduino

Wojtek Siudzinski and Matt Kozak assist Makerland attendees at the "Python and Ruby Sitting in a Tree" workshop.

Building an Arduino-Powered Doorlock

In the "Hack Your House" workshop, attendees controlled a home doorlock with an Arduino, an RFID reader and a servo motor.

Karolina Chmiel and Antoni Kedracki taught attendees to build a smart watch using a LilyPad microcontroller.

Hacking Hens' Happiness

Alan McCullagh teaches attendees to use the Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi camera to take photos (and videos) without a keyboard, mouse, or monitor attached. A good thing to learn, even if you don't have hens!

Dive! Dive! Dive!

In the "Dive!, Dive!, Dive!" workshop, makers built underwater robots from a locking food storage container!

Dancebot - A 3D printed, Dancing Robot

The "Dancebot" workshop was crowded with makers wanting to build these 3D printed dancing robots.

Dancebot is Open Hardware

Front view of the Dancebot. The design files and code are all available on github.

Dancebot is Powered by an Arduino Backpack

Dancebot sporting its Arduino UNO backpack.

Creator of the Dancebot

Jason Huggins, designer of the Dancebot, looking over one of the many robots at the workshop table.

Build a Bot

Paweł Szymczykowski led the "Build a Bot" workshop by teaching attendees to build one of his SumoBot Jr kits.

Day 2 of Makerland holds even more talks from makers and maker pros – and another afternoon of workshops. I’ll be hosting the “Hacking Your Community and Your Career” workshop, which will be the first time we’ve publicly shared the (early) results from our Maker Personality & Skills Assessment, and our tips on using your strengths to improve your community & career. You can follow the action in realtime on Twitter with hashtag #makerland. If you are an attendee, I’d love to hear what you are planning to make for the hackathon on day 3 – post in the comments below or stop by during my workshop!

Ian is a founder of The Maker Effect Foundation, a non-profit group organized to study and amplify the effects of makers within their communities. Ian is very active in the Orlando maker community as a member of FamiLAB, Orlando’s Hackerspace, and as a founding organizer of Maker Faire Orlando. Ian blogs about his family’s maker adventures at raisinggeeks.com.